UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the International Criminal Court Prosecutor: Investigate the Possibility that Israel is Committing the Crime of Genocide Against the Palestinian People

Since Israel’s origin, the state has dispossessed countless Palestinians through violent means, starting with the 1948 al-Nakba (“The Catastrophe”) in which nearly a million indigenous Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes or otherwise murdered by Zionist militias. The U.S. shares a common history with Israel as a fellow settler-colonial project rooted in genocide, making the countries’ current close relationship unsurprising.

From the General Confederation of Labor we continue to denounce the genocide of the Palestinian People by the Israeli State. Despite all attempts at whitewashing, the historical memory as well as the reality of the attacks on the Palestinian working class by the Zionist State are a daily constant.

Sinn Féin MEP Liadh Ní Riada has called for the ending of all EU funding to Israel. “Israel must be completely excluded from receiving any funding for research and development,” she said. “Every penny that they have received under the research and development scheme, which they have egregiously abused, makes the EU complicit in each and every murder Israel has carried out since 2000. That’s over 10,000 Palestinians. More than 2000 of them children. The EU’s Horizon 2020 is the biggest research and development programme in the world, with €80billion dedicated to it since 2014. Israel is allowed to take part in the programme on the basis of the EU-Israel association agreement, signed in 2000. An outrageous agreement that we warned two decades would only give legitimacy to Israel’s campaign of genocide.

David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, referring to the displaced Palestine people in 1949, said, “The old will die and the young will forget.” For over 70 years, the Palestinian people have resisted the Zionist occupation of Palestine, the forced displacement from their homeland, living under military rule, administrative detention, and genocidal policies of collective punishment and blockade. The old have passed on the history of the Palestinian people and the young have learned, remembered and continued the fight for self-determination.

“…the seminal distinction between Combatants and non-combatants are one of the ground principles of International Humanitarian Laws (or Laws of War) which come into play during war and armed conflicts. If unarmed civilians become fair game for armed government soldiers, since they are now regarded as combatants, then commission of killing, sexual violence, enforced disappearance, torture, foisting false cases which are ruinous for affected people, become the new “normal”.

…The governments and peoples of the world must demand justice against those guilty of these crimes against humanity. The international community can not remain silent in the face of the genocide of the Palestinian people. We demand that Israel submit to international law and comply with UN resolutions. Also, that our governments break diplomatic and commercial ties with the segregationist regime of Israeli apartheid.”

Colleagues in Palestine have called on solidarity organizations and all people of conscience to ratchet-up solidarity work in the light of what Israeli academic, Ilan Pappe, has termed, ‘incremental genocide’ in Gaza. Most recent developments include the mass shootings of March of Return protestors in Gaza. In the past few months hundreds of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza including medical personnel, journalists and children have been killed for demonstrating for their right to return to their land.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in Egypt called on Zamalek Club to cancel its contract with Puma Sportswear, because of the brand’s cooperation with the Israeli occupation… “We understand that you may not have been aware of the extent of the company’s support of the genocide…”

This is about freedom and equality for the Palestinian people, what it’s not about is any one insular community coming to grips with a movement that has been growing for some time. I think we’ve all had plenty of time, in fact, to come to grips with the fact that the Israeli government is heavily armed and genocidal.

My faith in the Zionist project has been completely destroyed. Disillusionment came partly from learning a more complete history of the founding of the State of Israel. Google “Al Nakba” if you need to know more. More importantly, Israeli government actions during theoretical negotiation toward a “two-state solution” convinced me that Zionism is Palestinian genocide. Life is systematically destroyed in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank through land seizures, theft of water, restrictions on transportation, commerce and trade, and military violence.